OUT & ABOUT

In the winter, playing outside with your kids is fun, but sometimes, parents and children need a break from the snow and want indoor amusement.

That's the theory behind the new Children's Museum at the Dacotah Prairie Museum. Director Sue Gates and Curator of Exhibits Lora Schaunaman have heard from parents that there aren't enough things to do in the wintertime in Aberdeen.

So after six or seven months of work, the Children's Museum opened Feb. 10 on the second floor of the museum. A portion of the museum will be open for a couple of years. Part of it, though, will be offered only until April 10. The museum doesn't have enough space to make it permanent.

So the Children's Museum is a pilot project. The museum, Gates said, thought a couple of months in the winter would be a good time to try it “and see how it goes.”

If the expansion project the museum is considering comes to fruition, a children's museum might be part of that, Gates said.

The Children's Museum also accomplishes something else. The Dacotah Prairie has noticed that parents with young children are a group that doesn't visit very often. Offering activities for young children will greatly remedy that problem.

Parents can take part in many of the activities with their children. Schaunaman said any time you can create interaction that doesn't involve sitting in front of a TV or computer, “it's a good thing.”

The museum staff had been tossing around the children's museum idea for about a year. Schaunaman was assisted in the project by curatorial assistant Marianne Marttila-Klipfel and Sherri Rawstern, curator of education.

Brochures have been sent to day cares and preschools to publicize the Children's Museum. So far, the response has been better than expected, Schaunaman and Gates said.

The children's area takes up the Helen Bergh Education Room, the Lamont Gallery and three small exhibit rooms on the north side of the building. After April 10, the Bergh Education Room and the Lamont Gallery will return to their normal uses.

The Helen Bergh Room has been transformed into the Agriculture and Prairie Ecosystem Room. Children may gather eggs, plant and harvest a garden, ride horses, build a sod house or climb into a covered wagon to read a book. There are lots of clothes for dress-up to enrich the pioneer atmosphere. The Frederick Elementary School donated money for the covered wagon.

The room also includes a barn and puzzles. In addition, kids can build a barbed-wire fence, using barbed wire that is safer than the real thing.

The three rooms have been used to re-create life in the frontier. Kids can put on a shopkeeper's apron, pick out vegetables and ring them up on a cash register. They may also wash clothes on a washboard and hang them on a clothesline.

The rooms include a pioneer house and barn, more dress-up clothes and a stick-horse corral.

“It's amazing how many kids have never ridden a stick horse,” Schaunaman said.

But the kids quickly learn how.

The Transportation Room shows old-fashioned modes of transportation. Young people may also move clouds in the sky or press a button to see stars illuminate the night.

The Lamont Gallery has been turned into the Art Room. Youngsters may try their hands at weaving or put on a beret and artist's smock and take a turn at an easel. Visitors may create a self-portrait on a mirror or make their own stained glass window, using paper. They can also put on a puppet show and play with blocks, stuffed animals and homemade instruments. Other activities include making American Indian medicine wheels and winter counts. Paintings and information about famous artists line the walls.

A donation from 3M was used to build the barn and playhouse.

Admission to the Children's Museum is free.

To complement this exhibit, a series of Saturday afternoon programs is being offered to explore these activities in more depth with children ages 5 to 12. One of them, on folk arts, runs Saturday from 2 to 3 p.m. The fee is $5 per child.

Call the museum at 605-626-7117 to register or learn more about these programs.

Museum hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.